


Exam Week

by Word_Devourer



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: College AU, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:15:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26081032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Word_Devourer/pseuds/Word_Devourer
Summary: In a study room with a view, and only two tables, Marinette is hard at work on an end-of-semester project, when Adrien arrives, with some difficult exams to come.Together, they'll try to survive exam week.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 14
Kudos: 127





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is actually based in a real room; 5th floor, two tables, two whiteboards, and an excellent view.  
> I think there's kind of a beauty in a room like that, especially one so quiet. It's the kind of place where you can sit, and only rarely be disturbed. It's the kind of place you can study, and I think the idea of having someone to share a room like that with is a fine thought.

From up here, she could see _everything._ The world was within her reach, and it was all so small, so petty.

She laughed, a low, dangerous chuckle.

_“Yes… Yes… Soon, all of this shall be mine. I will rule over all this land. I shall be their queen, and they shall bow before my greatness!”_

There was a long silence, at this exultant peak.

She sighed.

“Assuming I can figure this design out.”

She stepped back from the window, blinking fatigue from her eyes, and turned back towards her table.

She stopped.

“Uh… Hi?” said the boy who, judging by his confused expression, had heard the supervillainous declaration. He was standing just inside the doorway, a tablet under one arm, wearing a backpack.

“Oh! Um… Sorry, I was, uh… I’m getting a little punch-drunk. Final project for this class is to come up with a ‘masterpiece,’ and it’s due in like… less than a week.”

“Ah.”

“So, I’m, I guess, bashing my head against my own artist’s block, and hoping something gives way.”

“I see. You don’t mind if I…” he jerked his head towards the other table.

“Oh! No, not at all. I mean, it’s a public room after all.”

“Right,” he said, “it’s just… I mean, I’m in here because this is the least crowded one, so I was thinking that maybe it would be an issue because of how… crowded…” He chuckled, nervously, scratching at the back of his neck.

Marinette laughed.

“No, you’re fine. Honestly, it’s probably better for me if you do.”

“Oh?”

“Well, better you than some group of ten, right?”

“Right.”

He sat down at the other table, and Marinette resumed her own position.

She looked down at the paper, and, after a second, sighed.

Supervillainy hadn’t unlocked some secret knowledge of fashion… Honestly, she hadn’t known what she’d been expecting; it wasn’t like supervillains were even _known_ for their fashion.

She looked up.

Across from her, the boy had taken up a seat at the other table, and was unpacking some heavy-looking textbooks. The whiteboard behind him held only an old game of hangman. Between them, on the left, was the door, and on the right…

Marinette loved that window. A full wall of clear glass, looking out across the city from… Oh, this was, what, the fifth floor? Natural light, and a lovely vista.

She just wished it was a little more inspiring, or that she could _take_ more inspiration from it, or…

She shook her head.

Okay.

So, random word generators hadn’t sparked her curiosity. The designs in the old magazines she’d been checking were too old to be fashionable, but too recent for a renaissance. She’d scanned back through her notes, hoping something in _there…_

Nothing.

She put her pencil down, and slumped back in her chair, arms crossed in displeasure.

“I need an idea.”

“What?” He looked up from the textbook, which he’d been staring at intently.

“I’ve been coming up with designs for this class all year, but there was usually some prompt or another for it. You know, ‘come up with a design that demonstrates your understanding of, _whatever concept.’_ ”

“Oh. Uh… What… What _kind_ of design?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… are we talking about a patent, or a prototype, or…”

“Oh, sorry. I guess I didn’t say. It’s, um… An outfit. Fashion.”

“Ah!” he brightened, and then looked up. His eyes went distant. “Does it have to be something a person would actually wear, or is this, like… The ‘high art’ kind of fashion, that’s only for shows?”

“Commercial fashion.”

There was a pause, and he nodded.

“Got it.”

For a long, long second, he stared into the distance.

“What about… A dress, but there has to be a matching jacket.”

“You mean, like…”

“Like you wear the jacket _with_ the dress.”

Marinette looked down, vague images swimming before her eyes.

“Okay… Okay! I think I can work with that!”

She picked up the pencil again, mentally backtracked, and looked back up.

“Oh, um… Thanks, by the way.”

“No problem,” he said, smiling in an unexpectedly genuine way. There was an instant of silence, and then, “I’m Adrien, by the way.”

“Ah- Marinette.”

She bent forward, and started sketching out a shape.

“So, what are you in here for?”

He snorted. “You make it sound like we’re in prison or something.”

“Close enough.”

He laughed. “Well, since you ask, Warden, I’m in here for…” he sighed, _“Statics.”_

She blinked, still sketching. “Statics?”

“Uh- That’s a physics class.”

“Ah. In for the hard stuff.”

“Exactly. I’m a hardened…” there was a pause, “Mathematicriminal.”

She paused, and looked up.

“That was awful.”

“Physicriminal?”

“Worse.”

“Well, it was just to break the tension. You can’t afford to force it, you know?”

“I see.”

There was a silence.

“And,” he said, looking back down at the textbook, “that would be way funnier if you were also taking this class.”

“I’m sure if I were in the class, I’d be on the floor,” she said drily.

“Well, I definitely wish _I_ was on the floor right now _.”_

With that, the room fell silent. Marinette set about examining her own internal biases regarding what the ‘proper’ combination of the two pieces would look like, while, across from her, Adrien presumably struggled with physics.

Time passed, and, eventually, Adrien stood up, and started sketching a diagram of an object hanging from several curiously arranged bits of environment.

Marinette stared at her page, and, after a while, started pulling out bits of material from her bag.

Jackets with dresses was nothing _new,_ of course, but they generally took a specific form. Suppose she started with the supposition of a _leather_ jacket, and… But wouldn’t that need a pretty specific kind of dress? Or maybe that was one of those internal fashion biases that she needed to free herself from to create something truly amazing.

She frowned at the page, and grabbed a marker from the whiteboard behind her.

So… Imagine, just for a second…

…

When Marinette had stared out across the city, surveying her soon-to-be realm, the sun had only been _starting_ to go down.

When she finally stepped back from the half-completed sketch, the world outside was pitch black, illuminated by the lights of other buildings, and streetlamps.

She let out a groan, and staggered back into her chair.

A flicker of gold hair brought her back to the present as she remembered that she wasn’t the only person in this room.

Adrien seemed to be looking at something invisible, mouth and fingers moving silently, tracing patterns in the air, as he nodded to himself.

 _“…which is because it’s about acceleration, and not velocity,”_ he finished, and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands. “That’s, ha, _ridiculous, utterly ridiculous,_ ” he muttered to himself.

There was a moment of silence, and then, with a start, he suddenly seemed to see her again.

“Oh! Sorry, was that… Was I being too loud?”

“No! No, I- I was just about to call it a day and come back tomorrow, and I… Well, I kind of forgot you were even here.”

He laughed. “Yeah, you were pretty lasered in on it from what I could tell.” He looked past her at the board, “Oh! Coming along nicely, I see. Is that going to be a sash or a belt?”

“I was thinking a sash, but… Huh. See, I think the way I’m going with this is to see how much I can make two disparate styles work together, so… I’ll have to think about that.

“Right… And you said, what, you had a week?”

“Uh… Three days.”

“Oh. And… You don’t have to, like, _make_ it, right? Just design it?”

“There’s a modelling software we’re using.”

“Oh, so you’re pretty accustomed to working with models?”

Marinette blinked.

“Uh… Kind of? I’ve only been using it for this semester.”

“Ah. Could’ve fooled me.”

She frowned.

“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head, “dumb joke.”

“Hah,” she said, a bit uncertainly. “Okay, well… How about you?”

“Oh, I’ve got three days of exams coming up. The good news is that I’ve only got one bad one on each of those days. The bad news is that I’ve got three bad ones coming up.”

“Ah. See, most of _my_ exams should be easy. The worst one will probably be my fabric-working class, but I’ve been practicing for that one for… 13 years?”

“Oh, wow,” said Adrien, and then chuckled. “Baby- uh… Marinette?”

She nodded.

“Right. Baby Marinette walks into that class with a set of needles, just like ‘come on, I can handle it.’

“I wasn’t exactly a _baby,_ ” said Marinette, laughing, “I was just… a small child.”

“You know, on the one hand, that’s fair, but on the other, I feel like it’s funnier to imagine a baby.”

“Right.”

There was a long pause, as they looked down at their respective projects.

“Well, anyway,” said Marinette, “I should… I should probably be heading to bed. I’ve got an early exam tomorrow, and I’ll need to be rested if I want to keep working on _this,_ ” she jerked her head at the board.

“Yeah… Yeah, me too.”

“Well… Good night, Adrien.”

“Good night, Marinette. Uh… See you back here tomorrow, I guess. Unless someone takes my table.”

“Until then.”

They stepped out of the room, and, to Marinette’s surprise, _both_ turned directly into the stairwell.

Adrien took the stairs up, while Marinette went down _._

Her dreams that night were filled with flowing fabric, leather seams, and, every so often, a flash of golden hair.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrien meets his match, and everyone finds out a bit more than they meant to.

When Marinette opened the door, Adrien was standing there, facing out the window, with his hands clasped behind him.

He glanced back, and then looked back to the front.

“You see it, don’t you?”

She blinked. “What?”

“This city,” he said, voice oddly gravely as he faced forward, “it’s mine to defend. When evil comes calling, I’ll always be here, ready to stop it.”

Marinette crossed her arms, and tried to look unimpressed, but she was pretty sure it mostly came across as amused.

“Is that so, Batman?”

He turned, managing to give the impression of a dramatically billowing cape without a single piece of loose clothing, and, as he looked at her, his entire bearing for the barest instant almost made her forget that he wasn’t, in fact, a grim vigilante.

“Yes,” he said, and paused for dramatic effect, “but please, call me Bruce.”

She stared.

“Bruce _Wayne.”_

She covered her mouth in mock disbelief.

_“No.”_

He nodded, solemnly. “The very same.”

There was a pause, and then-

The illusion shattered, and suddenly it was just the boy from yesterday, chuckling, as he shook his head.

“Sorry,” he said, “I figured it would be appropriate, considering what I walked in on yesterday.”

“Oh, _absolutely,_ ” said Marinette, nodding as she took her seat back, “but… you definitely wouldn’t last very long as a superhero. You gave away your secret identity to someone you just met.”

“Well… Yeah… It’s not like _you_ did any better, though; you let someone sneak up on you mid monologue.”

Marinette giggled. “Alright. I guess it’s incompetence for the heroes _and_ the villains this time around.”

“Maybe we call a truce on it until we have more time to work on it? I’ve still got an exam to worry about tomorrow.”

“How’d the one today go? The, uh… _statics_ one.”

Adrien shrugged. “I definitely felt like I passed, but… I’ve had better days. You?”

“Oh, mine were easy. I’ve just got to finish up this project.”

“Got it. Looks like nobody touched your board, too. They just went for mine.”

Marinette nodded, solemnly, looking at what she’d sketched out yesterday; a great deal of it would need reworking, she’d realized.

“You know,” she said, not looking back, “I just realized, these boards are set up like a right-brain/left-brain explanation.”

A pause.

“Huh. I guess they kind of are.”

“We’re like a living art project.”

“I… I guess we are,” said Adrien, though something in the way he said it sounded like he wasn’t sold on the idea.

Marinette stared at the design, such as it was, and silently erased a contour, mouthing the words she’d been careful to write down when she’d woken up.

“By the way,” she said after a while, “were you a theater kid or something?”

“What?”

“Sorry,” she said, shaking her head, crosshatching a bit of depth into the folds of the skirt, stepping back to consider the effect, “but your vigilante speech felt like you’re used to playing the character. I thought maybe you’d been in… I don’t know, there has to be _some_ play with a character like that, right?”

“Probably,” he agreed, “but I was never in it.”

“That’s just natural talent, then?”

“Well… Not quite,” he sounded almost ashamed, but…

“Oh? Something personal? You were a big fan of…” she scoured her mind for the appropriate explanation, “Dungeons and Dragons? Are… Are people still ashamed of playing that? I feel like they used to be.”

“No! No, I wish.” Adrien, behind her, sighed. “I never actually knew enough people to play it.”

Marinette crinkled her forehead. “You only need three or four people, right?”

“Yeah, well…”

At the way he trailed off, Marinette couldn’t quite help turning around, giving him a concerned look.

Adrien was still facing the board, but he seemed to feel her gaze on him, and he turned, waving off the worry.

“I was… _Very_ homeschooled. I probably still would be, but I managed to make Father say he’d let me live in a dorm for college, back when I was in high school, and I’ve never let him forget it.”

“I… See.”

There was a long silence.

“So… Not that. Probably not… what’s the word, LARPing? Not that either.”

“Nope.”

Marinette turned.

“You know, if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. I’m just… curious.”

Adrien chuckled.

“No, I understand, it’s…” he sighed. “I was a model.”

She blinked.

“Like… A fashion model?”

He nodded.

“My father… Is involved with a fashion company. In the past few years, they’ve moved away from teen fashion, but back when they did… I was one of the people who modeled it.”

“Huh.”

Marinette stared.

There was no denying that…

That…

Her cheeks went red.

“Agreste. Adrien Agreste.”

“I- Yeah?”

“I… I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you sooner. You were the face of the formal adolescent section of the Agreste catalogue for _years._ You-“ She cut herself off, and cleared her throat.

“I…?”

“Yes, you.”

Adrien continued to look at her.

Marinette returned the gaze, trying and failing not to look like she’d cut herself off.

Well… He had kind of told her a secret. It seemed only fair to return the favor.

“I… Was just going to say,” she said, and licked her lips, which had suddenly become oddly dry, “that you, were… my first celebrity crush… Or… Well… Kind of my only one.”

Adrien went red.

“Oh.”

“Yeah…”

“Well… Wait, no, how _did_ you not recognize me? I can’t have changed _that_ much, can I?”

“I mean I kind of tried to forget about the whole thing!” said Marinette, a trifle despairingly. “I… May or may not have had a sleepover where someone found my… photo collection. ”

“Wait,” said Adrien, and now a disbelieving grin was spreading across his face, “you had a photo album? Of me?”

“I was 15, and you looked good in suits! I take no responsibility!”

“Oh of course, of course,” said Adrien, “perish the thought. We can’t help who we make shrines to at that age.”

“It wasn’t a shrine!” protested Marinette, “just… Like… a bunch of newspaper clippings,”

There was a silence.

“I swear I heard a comma at the end of that sentence,” said Adrien.

Marinette grimaced. “…and a few drawings.”

Adrien nodded, solemnly. “Drawings.”

There was a long silence, and Adrien’s expression slowly dropped.

“Sorry, that was probably… This is probably embarrassing for you… I guess I never expected to actually meet, a… Fan? Or, ex-fan at this point, I guess. It’s just kind of surreal.”

“You’re telling me. I spent _hours_ thinking about what it would be like to meet you, and then, when I did, I didn’t realize it had happened.”

There was a long silence.

“Can we just pretend… Can we just pretend you never told me you were a model, and I never told you about… all of that?”

“Yes! I mean… Yes.”

Marinette nodded, and turned back to her board.

She stared, and…

The dress was starting to take form, now.

“So…” said Marinette.

“Yeah?”

“You… Worked backstage on costuming at a theater production, and picked up some of the acting skills…”

“What are you…” There was a long silence. “Right. Exactly. That’s what I did. And you came to watch the production… But you had a friend backstage.”

“Okay…”

“And you had an art project that you needed inspiration for, where you made a collage.”

“Of course!” said Marinette, grasping where he was going. “So, while everyone was performing the play, I had you switch into the different outfits, and took pictures.”

“Right! Except then, despite how good your work was, it got a low grade, and your friends mocked you for it.”

“Wait, what?”

“Well, I can’t figure out how _else_ you’d become a supervillain.”

“Oh! Right! Yes, exactly! I swore on that day never to rest until the world was mine, and they’d have no _choice_ but to love my work,” said Marinette, punctuating the statement with an evil laugh for good measure. “But the _last_ thing I expected was for you to rise up to stop me.”

“There it is! Haunted by the fact that it was my pictures that led to your villainy, I swore to fight against you.”

Marinette giggled. “Perfect. Or, well, actually, awful.”

“Oh?”

“Well, the fact that you remember all that means my memory wipe must have failed.”

“I see,” said Adrien. “I’m going to need to write some of this down, so I don’t forget it again.”

“Me too,” agreed Marinette, “you never know when I’ll get my own devices turned against me.”

“A fate all villains must fear,” agreed Adrien, solemnly.

Marinette laughed and returned her focus to the whiteboard.

_The problem was that it wasn’t just that the styles were difficult to work with; the materials weren’t naturally suited to each other, either, which meant compromises were in order…_

_As the minutes, and, eventually, hours slipped by, the shape shifted further, and Marinette finally managed to finalize the main design. Accessories were… Probably optional, technically, but she wanted to-_

“Are you staying late?” asked Adrien, and she blinked.

“Uh… Maybe? What time is-“

She turned, blinking sleep from her eyes, and…

The sky outside was pitch black, and, as she looked down at the screen of her computer.

“Oh,” she said.

It was almost 11.

She blinked, staring, because she’d gotten here around 4…

“Uh… Yeah… I should probably… I… Huh.”

“I went to grab dinner a while ago,” said Adrien, scratching the back of his neck, “I was going to ask if you wanted me to grab you something, but… I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“Oh… Oh, yeah, no I’m hungry,” said Marinette, as the sensation suddenly reasserted itself. “And… And I definitely need to go to the bathroom.”

“Yeah… Probably a good time to call it a night, grab some snacks.”

“I don’t have any cash on me.”

He blinked. “I mean, like, in your room. Do you not have any food?”

She shook her head. “I’ve been meaning to get more for a while, but I’ve been busy.”

“Alright,” said Adrien, visibly concerned. “Well… I’ve got food in _my_ room? You head to yours, I’ll bring you some chips or something? They’re really good. Or… Well, _I_ like them. My roommate says they’re junk.”

“Well,” said Marinette, blinking at the ease with which he suggested it, “I guess? I… I _am_ hungry.”

He nodded. “What’s your room number?”

“623.”

“Ah. I’m in 401”

She nodded, and started packing up what she’d brought. It wouldn’t be much more designing before she could start modeling it.

_The phrase ‘experienced at working with models,’ popped back into her head, and she groaned. So that’s what he’d meant._

Head still spinning from the intense focus, Marinette wandered her way back up the stairs, and along the hallway.

Her roommate had been spending most of her nights recently with one of her friends who lived on the edge of campus… Friend… Girlfriend? She’d hadn’t been especially forthcoming, and Marinette hadn’t asked.

The door clicked open, and…

She sighed. Empty.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrien arrives bearing gifts. Marinette promises recompense.

Adrien, found his door unlocked, which probably meant…

He breathed a sigh of relief. The lights were still on, and, at his desk, his roommate was untangling a mess of wires, which were presumably supposed to go into the board that he had to one side.

“Good evening,” he said.

“Yup. You heading to bed?”

“Not yet.”

“Cool.”

Adrien looked under his bed, where…

He grabbed a few likely looking bags, a package of those weird, mass-produced cookies, and, for good measure, a few bottles of a soda he still hadn’t tried that had looked like fun.

“You heading to a party?”

“No. Just bringing some food up to… a friend.”

“Oh. Cool.”

‘A friend’ was probably too strong a word, but it sounded more believable than ‘acquaintance,’ so he was going to stick with it.

Now, back out from his room, turn right, then into the stairwell. Up not one, but two flights, because she’d said she lived on the sixth floor, in room…

6… 21? He stared down the hallway, feeling suddenly out of place.

No. Not 21.

He started walking.

Because… It had been weird how they hadn’t had any overlap in their room numbers. 401, and… 6, of course, and he was pretty sure about the 2, but… either 3 or 5.

He kept walking until… He stood between 623 and 625.

Now, the problem was that it was almost 11pm, and if he knocked on the wrong door…

There was no good way of asking where she was without revealing that he didn’t know, while at the same time, implying that he knew her far better than two days of studying in the same room _actually_ accounted for.

And he _couldn’t_ just give up now. He’d _said_ he was going to bring her some food, and he was _going_ to do it.

He sighed.

Okay… Did he feel lucky?

He was almost _certain_ that she was behind one of these doors.

He looked left, then right, and…

He stepped slowly to the left.

Room 625.

He certainly _hoped_ that-

There was the sound of a lock being undone, and he froze.

On his right, he heard, more than he saw, the door open, and there, suddenly, was Marinette, looking out, and then to either side.

He stepped hurriedly away from the door that was now _definitely_ wrong.

“Hello!” he said, sliding horizontally, as if to imply that he’d never even _been_ over there.

“Hi,” she said, laughing.

“I… Kind of forgot your room number.”

“I see,” she said.

“I have… Uh… Ginger ale… Chips… Cookies.”

She raised her eyebrows, eying the assortment in his arms.

“That’s a lot of chips.”

“Yeah…”

“I… I don’t think I can feel good about taking _all_ of this,” she said, frowning. “Uh… Hang on, come in for a second.”

“Oh! Uh, okay?”

He stepped into a tastefully decorated dorm room, half of which was clearly Marinette’s, if for no other reason than the half-finished pair of pants which was draped across the desk.

“Ah-“ she said, clearing a space on the desk, “hang on. Okay, just… put the pile there, for a second.”

He did so.

“Okay, so…” She stared at the selection of junk food, then looked back at him, as if trying to gauge how much would be acceptable.

“Well, you’ve got to at least take one of the drinks, right?” he said.

She nodded her head side to side.

“Maybe… But if I take one, you have to take the other.”

“Oh?”

“How else will I know it’s not poisoned?”

“Ah!” he said, “right, yes. I see you’ve thought of everything.”

He reached out halfway to the pair. “Well then… Pick your poison.”

She giggled, and he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t kind of cute.

“I will take…” she stared, “this one.”

“I see…” he said, keeping his expression carefully blank as he took the other.

He turned suddenly away, facing a nonexistent camera.

“I knew then that I was in grave danger. She had left me with the poisoned bottle. Perhaps my trained resilience to poison would save me. But, simultaneously, I was trapped by societal obligations. I had to be polite, even though it might kill me.”

He turned back, and Marinette was clearly stifling a smile.

“Well then,” he said, as if the interjection hadn’t happened, cracking the seal on the bottle, “cheers.”

They drank, draining the top portion of their respective bottles.

“Okay,” said Marinette, letting out a sigh, “that _is_ pretty good.”

“Now… Chips or cookies?”

Marinette snorted. “Honestly, if I had my way, neither.”

“Oh?”

“That’s not normally what I go for, as far as food goes.”

“Why not? It’s delicious.”

“Well I _used_ to love it, but…” Marinette paused. “Did you get to eat this kind of stuff at home?”

“Oh. No. I’d never had anything like it before the start of the school year.”

“Ah…” said Marinette, grimacing. “Right. Well, I can’t blame you, but…” She brightened. “Tell you what. Maybe I can pay you back for this in pastries.”

“You don’t have to-“ Adrien began to protest, but… “When you say pastries…”

“I mean that my family runs a bakery, and I have basically free access to anything that doesn’t get bought on a given day, so if you randomly find a bag full of _slightly_ stale pastries on your doorstep, you’ll know why.”

There was a silence, and Marinette laughed aloud.

“What?”

“Just… The way your eyes just…” She shook her head, still laughing, “you looked like one of those pictures of a cat seeing a Christmas tree for the first time.”

He giggled. “Well, if this is the payment I get for bringing people food, then I’ll have to start doing it more often.”

“This,” said Marinette, pulling the bag of chips open, “is only food in the loosest sense, and I’m only accepting it because I am _very_ hungry.”

She pulled out a handful, and started eating.

“But also thank you, you didn’t have to do this.”

“Oh, it’s no problem,” said Adrien, waving it off with one hand, and pulling the cookies open with the other.

“Hmm…” said Marinette, though Adrien got the impression that it was more directed at the chips, which she seemed to be crunching her way through at a _remarkable_ speed.

He chugged the rest of the ginger ale, and started on the cookies in earnest.

“You know, though,” he said, “I really probably _should_ be getting back to my room. It’s almost 11:30, and I’ve got a 7 AM exam tomorrow.”

There was a moment of silence as Marinette finished her handful of chips.

“Oh, that’s _awful._ It’s not the bad one, right?”

“No, but I kind of wish that it was,” said Adrien. “I think I’d prefer to get that one out of the way as early in the day as possible.”

“Hm.”

“So,” he said, taking a full stack of the cookies between his thumb and index finger, “I think I’ll head to bed now.”

Marinette nodded. “Good night!”

“Good night.”

He stepped back out of the room, and clicked the door shut behind him.

It was a strange sensation, leaving someone’s room so late at night, and Adrien found himself relieved that there was nobody around to see where he’d come from.

It wasn’t even like he’d done anything noteworthy, it just…

By the time he made it to the stairs, he felt almost relaxed.

Down one flight, and-

Back into the stairwell, because he’d stepped out on the 5th floor, but he lived on the 4th.

He finally finished the stack of cookies as he stepped back into his room.

It took him a couple minutes to get ready for bed, of course, and he had to make sure he had his alarm set, but…

He fell face first into the mattress.

As he sank into unconsciousness, he found his mind filled with strange, backwards proofs, and cyclical, counterintuitive logic, and, occasionally, just on the edge of thought, he could almost feel a flicker of laughter.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrien prepares for the last of his exams. Marinette comes bearing gifts.

_One more exam._

_That was what he kept repeating to himself._

_He just needed to finish one more exam, and then he’d be home free._

Somehow, the reminder just seemed to drain him further.

Of course, part of the problem was that he didn’t really _want_ to go home; Father had a habit of asking where he was going and disapproving of it no matter what it was. Adrien kept getting the impression that he was always one slip-up away from the level of observation he’d always had as a child, which…

He sighed. It wasn’t even like he did anything that would get him in trouble, it was just…

He looked up, at a clatter in front of him.

He stared, trying to parse what he was seeing, as-

“Payback,” said Marinette. “You look like you need it.”

“Oh…” said Adrien, staring, “yeah… Yeah, I think…”

Marinette snorted.

“What?”

“I… Someone _needs_ to take a picture and caption it, ‘get someone who looks at you like Adrien Agreste looks at baked goods.’”

Adrien hesitantly reached out for a macaron, some bit of his mind taken by the certainty that they’d evaporate into mist if he moved too quickly.

“Well… I don’t think I could have a long-term relationship with these…”

Marinette grinned. “You could if you lived in a bakery.”

He looked up sharply, macaron halfway to his mouth.

Marinette seemed surprised, and-

“I mean!” she said, “that if you live where they’re made you always have access- _I_ always have access because… Because _I_ live in a… I… I’m not, like… Suggesting you me in with move- _me- Move in with me- I’m not suggesting you move in with me._ ”

Adrien blinked. “No! Of course not- I mean- I… It doesn’t sound like some horrible fate, obviously, but…” he shrugged, “I mean, it’s not like I know you that well.”

“Exactly!” said Marinette, visibly relieved. “That. Ah- But I should be working on making a model of this dress!” She spun on her heel, and practically marched back to her table.

“And I,” said Adrien, biting down on the macaron, “should be studying for this calculus exam.”

“I… took a calculus class once,” said Marinette, sitting down at her computer, “how is it at higher levels?”

“Ah…” said Adrien, “I mean… Some of it’s pretty different, I guess. It turns out that a lot of the stuff you learn early on is designed to be solved, and past a certain point, you have to learn new ways to do it.”

“My impression was that that was just how calculus _worked,_ ” said Marinette. “Because… You know, the whole, area under the curve thing, you… you can only get so precise if you do it the normal way, but if you… You know?”

“Uh,” said Adrien, trying to parse what she meant as he stared down at his notes. “I think so? Uh… _Yeah,_ yeah, that sounds right. I’m guessing you did well back when you took it?”

He glanced up to the sight of Marinette nodding her head side to side, consideringly.

“I knew what I was _supposed_ to do,” said Marinette. “Actually doing it was a different issue. I kept losing things.”

Adrien glanced past her, at the board. Beautiful script, but, even at this distance, difficult to read.

“I see.”

There was silence.

Minutes passed.

“By the way,” he said, eventually, not looking up from his matrices, “I thought you still had some accessories to work on, or something.”

“I figured them out last night, after you left.”

“How late were you up?”

He looked up, at the silence from the other side of the room.

“Never ask me that,” said Marinette, one finger up in a warning gesture. _“I_ don’t want to know how late I stay up.”

Adrien laughed. “Bit of a night owl, huh?”

“Well… Mostly I get so busy doing something that I forget to look at the time.”

“Ah. Like yesterday.”

“Exactly. The only reason I stopped was because I would have had to open my computer, and that jolted me out of it.”

“Well, no denying you get things done.”

“Ha,” said Marinette, but she sounded a bit uncertain. “Sometimes. Sometimes I sit there and stare at a blank screen for an hour before deciding to go work on one of my personal projects.”

“Hit or miss, then,” said Adrien. “Big hits, big misses.”

“Is that my catchphrase now?”

“ _Exactly,”_ he said, _“Marinette, human artillery; big hits, big misses.”_

“Blowing up the whole city, then,” said Marinette.

“What?”

“You know… After my photo collage project went wrong?”

“Oh! Right. Exactly.”

He stared back down at the paper, and then-

“Do you have a supervillain costume?”

“Uh… Definitely!” said Marinette, “but you can’t see it, which I have good reasons for.”

He nodded. “Obviously. Always good evil reasons for something like that.”

“Exactly.”

“You probably get your powers from it, but only if you wear it for the first time under a full moon on New Year’s.”

“Yes. Exactly,” said Marinette.

There was the clicking of a keyboard from across the room.

Well then. 4 PM on the clock, and no time to lose

Adrien closed his eyes to tune out the sound of Marinette’s typing.

…

 _Because one of the matrices was comprised of_ functions _, he could… What?_

He rubbed annoyance from his eyes, and checked the time on his tablet.

“6:55,” he said. Realistically, he could wait longer before grabbing something to eat, but he’d also worked his way through most of the platter than Marinette had…

He stared across the room, and…

Marinette was gone.

She’d left the room, clearly taking her laptop, and bookbag, and…

He shook his head.

Maybe she’d just gone to dinner. Or, then again, maybe she’d finished her project and had headed back to her room.

He paused, shook his head, and kept working.

Whatever the case, this was probably better eating than what he’d have gotten _anyway._

She’d given him a gift, and it would be wrong to do anything other than make full use of it.

 _Oh yeah. This whole this was_ going _to be gone by the time he left tonight._

_If for no other reason than that this class got absurdly confusing at the end._

Minutes passed, and then hours.

Marinette didn’t come back, but, with the incredible power of baked goods…

He looked at the clock on his computer, and… 9 PM. That… That could have been a _lot_ worse.

Call that a finished study session, and, really, call it a night, too.

He could ask Marinette about her project when…

When…

Right.

She’d been using this room to work on her project. Which was due by tomorrow.

Adrien paused, midway through packing up, and shook his head.

Realistically, it probably shouldn’t have mattered much, but… Well, he probably wasn’t going to share any classes with her.

He sighed, and tried to put the thought from his head.

Back down the stairs, and…

He wanted to sleep; he was certainly tired, but…

He didn’t know long he laid there, awake despite his best efforts, as he steadfastly resisted the urge to check the clock, but it felt like a long time.

He was awake when his roommate came back, which was usually after 10, and then, after that, it felt like far longer before sleep finally took him.


	5. Chapter 5

To Adrien’s surprise, his calculus exam went about as well as he could have hoped, but despite that, and despite the fact that he got a full lunch, and had all the free time in the world…

The problem was…

The problem…

The problem was that he was stupid.

He had sat in the same room as her for three days in a row, cramming for completely different exams. That wasn’t much of a basis for… Well, for anything.

Part of it, he decided, as he sat in a corner with a cup of water, was the fact that she had given him food, and _good_ food at that. It was possible he didn’t even want to talk to _her_ as much as he wanted to visit the bakery her family owned.

_He didn’t even know her last name._

Of course… He _did_ know her room number, it was just…

He shook his head.

What was he supposed to do, walk up to her room with no guarantee she was there, knock on the door, which her roommate might potentially answer, and say… What?

What did he even _want_ to say?

He stepped outside, into the sunlight, and, looked around.

Well. For the moment, at least, he was completely free to do whatever he wanted; he could walk straight off campus, or go lie in the grass, or sit under a tree, or just… go straight back to his room and sleep some more.

Yet, somehow, he found himself on the 5th floor, in a small study room, staring at the notes and sketches that had become a dress and a jacket.

He sighed, shaking his head.

He really _was_ dumb, wasn’t he.

Silently, he sat down at the table, pulled out his tablet, and… waited.

\--

It had been, to not put too fine a point on it, a _surreal_ couple of days.

She’d been _supposed_ to string that assignment out over almost a month, but she’d done it in three days, and in the process… Well.

And the results… _‘An inspired creation, demonstrating a clear understanding of both convention and subversion. Full credit.’_

She grinned.

_So, now what? Was she supposed to send that clipping to her parents? Or, maybe she should tell them she’d met the boy she’d had a celebrity crush on in high school? Both? Neither?_

Her phone buzzed.

_New message from ‘BFF Or Else_ _😉’_

She rolled her eyes, but smiled all the same. Alya had set the name herself, and Marinette had meant to change it back, but it had been funny, and then she’d gotten used to it.

She opened the message.

_‘And you didn’t ask him out!?’_

_‘Girl, I’m disappointed in you, I hope you know that.’_

Marinette rubbed at her eyes.

‘Seriously?’

_‘You were this close >< to living the average teen girl’s boy band dream. Of course I’m disappointed.’_

‘I see.’

Marinette shook her head and replaced the phone in her pocket, and started back up towards her room.

Her phone buzzed again.

_‘I mean seriously, from what you were saying, he’s a reformed model, who’s actually smart, and you liked him without realizing who he was. That’s like… classic.’_

_‘Hot, but also knows physics?’_

_‘Swoon.’_

‘Why does it matter if he can do physics?’

_‘Listen, I’ve got nothing against empty-headed boys with a good heart, I’m just saying that a smart model who you get along with and had a celebrity crush on is like… You know how some people have a list of people they agree they’d cheat on their spouse with if they had the chance?’_

_‘I’m just saying this guy would be at the top of your list, and since you’re not already in a relationship, you have a moral imperative to ask him out, if only so you can say you tried.’_

Marinette stopped, as she walked past the 4th floor, some corner of her mind legitimately tempted to go knock on his door. But no. She kept walking, and-

She sighed, pausing at the landing for the 5th floor.

He’d finished his exams. It wasn’t like he’d be back here _anyway._ He was free to go and… Do whatever it was he wanted to do.

But…

Her shoulders slumped; she’d used up all of her willpower on the 4th floor, and now…

It wasn’t like it would be a problem, anyway; if anyone was in there, she was just… She was just checking on her sketches, to take a picture of them, which was why -- she reached into her pocket -- she had her _phone_ out, and-

The door clicked open, and-

“Oh.”

“Hi.”

“You’re… Still here, huh? Some other exam you forgot about?”

Adrien went red. “Um, no… I’m… I’m actually finished for the semester! I’m… Um… Yeah. You?”

“Well…” she said, “I was just… I was coming back in to check on the whiteboard,” she held her phone up, “and maybe take a picture of it, and…” she sighed, “and I was… I…”

She looked away, feeling her cheeks flush.

“What?”

“I was kind of hoping you’d be here.”

“Really?”

She looked sharply at him, surprised by the tone of his voice.

Unable to handle something about the look in his eyes, she turned and faced the whiteboard, camera open.

“I mean… I… I didn’t end up saying goodbye last night, which… You know… It seems like something you should do… With your nemesis.”

“Right… Right…”

Her phone buzzed, a notification appearing along the top.

_“Come on, you gotta do it. Just ask him out.’_

She put up a finger up and dismissed the notification, snapped the picture and turned back towards him.

She couldn’t read from his expression whether he’d seen the message, or whether he knew it was about him, or…

“You know…” she said, “I never did show you my final design on that outfit.”

“I- Right, yeah, I guess you didn’t.”

“So… How about I do that?” She said, trying to sound decisive.

“O- Okay? Yeah, sure.”

“But…” She worried a bit at her lower lip. “Maybe… Maybe over coffee? I think a new place just opened up on the edge of campus.”

He blinked.

“Yes! I… Yes. Definitely. Now, or… Later? Or…”

“Ah-“ she said, “um… I mean… I’m free now?”

He blinked, and slowly, _ever so slowly,_ a grin spread across his face. “Alright then. I’m in.”


End file.
